Social media are basically some applications or websites that have enabled the users to take part in social networking by creating, exchanging and sharing their ideas or contents.
How did the concept of Social media come?
In the year 1960, the PLATO SYSTEM was launched which was created in the University of Illinois later commercialized under the Control Data Corporation. It is considered as the early forms of Social media. It came with several important features like: messaging instantly, online chat groups, reporting news, online mode of newspapers, bloggings etc. With the passage of time the systems got developed and new features were added and improved.
GeoCities was the earliest simplest form of social media platform launched in the year 1994. This was later followed by another such platform Classmates.com in the year 1995.
What are the features of Social media services or platforms?
- The social media platforms are basically Internet based applications of Web 2.0
- Social media provides the facility of developing the online mode of social networks by linking the profile of a user with the other individuals of the group.
- Social media platforms provide the facility of: business networks, shopping, blogging, photo sharing, video sharing, social bookmarking, social gaming, social networks etc.
Some of the best Social Media Platforms are:
- Facebook with 2.74 billion users
- You Tube with 2.29 billion users
- WhatsApp with 2 billion users
- Facebook Messenger with 1.3 billion users
- Instagram with 1.22 billion users
- TikTok with 689 million users
- QQ with 617 million users
- Twitter with 330 million users monthly
- LinkedIn with 8 billion users (as of 2020)
One cannot deny the importance of the social media it has over our lives. Social media platforms have changed the way of communication with people. One sitting at his home can connect to a person sitting miles and miles away at a single click with the help of these social media platforms. It has improved the relationships between people. People are now more concerned about their social media image in many ways. Social media platforms have helped people in campaigning purposes also. For example, an incident took place in your locality, in order to get it known to the whole world we need the help of social media.
Social Media and its Impact over the Society
Social Media has also made an important impact on our society. The people nowadays are concerned about their culture and traditions. With the help of these social media they can showcase their culture, language, tradition, and way of living, rituals etc. to the whole world. It has helped those people or tribes or groups or communities to get the attention of the whole world. With the people being active in the social media platforms has reduced crimes to a certain extent. It is now easy to go live or record or show photos of the injustice, crimes or social taboos that are being faced and get the attention of the authorities. Social media has helped many poor or deprived but talented people to showcase their talents in front of the world too.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has become one of the most powerful and prime virtual platforms that not only limits the ability to make friends or communicate with them but also in the field of marketing and advertisement of the brand and products. With the help of social media posts brand publicity or endorsements can be done in an effective and easy manner. Since nowadays the number of online users is almost 59% of the total population of the world, it has helped in increasing or expanding the business. The products can be advertised in a cost effective manner i.e. It has reduced the cost of advertisement. In the old days advertising your products needed extra money but after digitalization , this problem has reduced to a great extent.
Social Media has helped in growing an audience with the help of a small budget. For example , social media platforms help you to create pages of your interests. If you want to expand your networks or increase the reach of your products you can post or advertise them on your page. If the people like it or show interest in your products, they can contact you.
Social media platforms have also helped entrepreneurs in competing with their competitors. Since the social media platforms are public, the competitors can also review the products of other companies or organizations. This will help them to improve their products and formulate new market strategies to overcome the competitors.
Now with the help of different web tools one can also keep a note on the analytics as well. In simple words, the companies can view the number of visitors in their page or the traffic by using certain tools which are available on the social media forums. It will help the companies to understand their business popularity, how people are accepting their products or how it can be improved. Building a custom audience will enable the users to improve customer contentment. Social media platforms also help in increasing the overall ROI.
The relationships with the Target customers can be built with the help of the social media platforms. After viewing the products the customers should be satisfied with the products, they need to believe in the authenticity and usefulness of the product.
